A real airline flies into city

Thursday

Apr 4, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Dianne Williamson

Local businessman Bill Randell is a longtime booster of Worcester Regional Airport, for reasons he can’t fully explain. Maybe he has a soft spot for aviation underdogs. Or perhaps quixotic quests are in his nature.

Wednesday, Randell was among the many smiley faces that would have warmed the heart of Harvey Ball as JetBlue touched down in Worcester and announced it would begin daily flights to Florida in the fall. The news was so welcome that our beaming city manager, speaking before a large crowd that packed the terminal, strongly implied that he was clad in blue boxers.

“I love the smell of JetBlue jet engines in the morning,” said Manager Michael O’Brien, and let’s hope the line burgled from “Apocalypse Now” is not a portend of the airport’s future. “Smells like victory.”

This development is so positive that I will refrain from any cracks about the Mach 10 grovel fest staged by city leaders, who haven’t been this happy since Police Chief Gary Gemme deactivated his Twitter account. The ceremony included a marching band, an arch of swords for the deplaned executives, and such enthusiastic hugging between O’Brien and JetBlue CEO Dave Barger that I was tempted to suggest they get a room.

Nor will I observe that everyone was so crazed at the ceremony, so delirious with joy that a successful business would actually come to Worcester and try to sell us something, that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see people tossing cash at Barger before they even booked a ticket.

Instead, I’m inspired to pen my own quasi-original love poem:

Roses are Red

Violets are Blue.

So is Our New Air Carrier.

Here’s another:

How Much Do We Need JetBlue?

Try to Leave, and We’ll Kill You.

Other carriers have abandoned us, but this feels different. JetBlue is an established and reliable low-fare airline, unlike, say, Direct Air, which boasted the aeronautical flair and expertise of a municipal parking garage. Randell and his wife have already booked promotional low-fare tickets to Fort Lauderdale through JetBlue, a pleasant experience despite the purpose of the trip: a visit with his mother-in-law.

“It was a good day for Worcester,” Randell said after the ceremony, and he even got a shout-out from the city manager. Randell sponsored a $2,000 contest for the best video to lure JetBlue to Worcester.

But while Randell was happy about the development, he had some important advice: let’s put our money where the momentum is.

“It’s time for people to start buying tickets and support JetBlue,” he said. “The time for contests is over. If we don’t support them, they won’t stay. There are no more excuses — just buy the tickets. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to make this a success.”

Well, this is Worcester, after all, where we never met a bargain we didn’t like. If the flights stay cheap, we’ll book them. And what about free airport parking? Worcesterites are so enamored of that perk that we’d park our cars at the airport, even if we weren’t flying anywhere.

There’s really no downside to the JetBlue development, which is unusual in a city whose perpetually peeved residents could find controversy in a litter of fluffy kittens. I tried hard to think of one and I asked Randell: what about noise pollution from the planes?

“That’s baloney,” he said.

Randell also believes that the Florida flights are simply a starting point.

“If we support those routes, other routes will come,” he said. “If we fill those planes, we’ll have more flights than we know what to do with. Then we can start talking about noise pollution.”

So suck it up, West Siders. After the years of silence that’s echoed from empty airport hill, the rumble of jet engines should be music to our ears.